Vindication

By Satish Sekar © Satish Sekar (January 20^th 2012)

Exoneration and Vindication

Exoneration on appeal or acquittal at trial is where most miscarriage of justice cases are left – exoneration without acceptance of innocence. Unlike most I refused to stop investigating, believing that it was possible to resolve this case fully by finding the real killer.

The Cardiff Five were innocent, but Lynette White remained as robbed of justice as she had ever been and her family and society too were horribly cheated. This was and remains the difference-making miscarriage of justice in Britain, but only because it was possible to find the real killer and vindicate the originally accused, proving their innocence beyond doubt and that in turn would open the door to real change and not just for them.¹

Vindication of the Cardiff Five was essential. It began the process of acknowledging what had gone wrong and possibly redressing it. Outrageously the police were allowed to dictate the terms of establishing what went wrong – a process that ultimately failed miserably and created new victims in the process.

Historic

In July 2003 Jeffrey Gafoor became the first murderer in British history to plead guilty to a murder that had previously resulted in a miscarriage of justice. Like South Wales Police, he apologised to both Lynette’s family and the Cardiff Five.

To their eternal shame no other individual or organisation involved in the miscarrying of justice in this scandalous injustice has apologised, let alone taken responsibility for their roles in it. But justice requires more than apologies – far more – and it should not depend on vindication, which occurs too rarely.

Facilitation or Acquiescence

I have been involved in miscarriage of justice work for over two decades. The role of the criminal justice system in facilitating or at least acquiescing in miscarriages of justice can no longer be ignored. The Cardiff Five have been vindicated and it was a rare case where the poor performance of a lawyer – it ought to have been plural – was acknowledged, but several others have never been accepted.

For example, the tragic case of Stefan Kiszko was one where the performance of his QC disgraced every concept of justice. There is no doubt that Kiszko was innocent. He was accused of the murder of a child and dealt with severely by other prisoners unaware of his vulnerability and of comprehensive proof of his innocence.

Kiszko was vindicated 32 years after the appalling murder of eleven-year-old Lesley Molseed, but it was far too late. Kisko was long dead, but evidence of his innocence had been known for many years by then. It should have prevented his wrongful conviction and the scandalous theft of his life by an an incompetent system that failed to ensure that proof of his innocence was clearly presented to the jury.

Outrageous

His defence QC, later to become Home Secretary, Leader of the House of Lords and Governor of Bermuda, Baron David Waddington, made significant and outrageous errors of judgement. Despite being bombarded with masses of unused papers at the opening of Kiszko’s trial, Waddington did not seek an adjournment to go through it.

Waddington pursued a defence of diminished responsibility despite Kiszko refusing to authorise it. But the worst error of all proved Kiszko’s innocence beyond doubt and later the guilt of Ronald Castree. The murderer had deposited his semen on Molseed’s clothing. It did not match Kiszko and was later proved to have been deposited by Castree.

Even at his trial it was obvious that the semen proved Kiszko innocent. The former tax-clerk could not produce semen. The failure to present this evidence of innocence disgraces every concept of justice and Kiszko’s then defence lawyers failed him and society miserably.

This was a truly appalling miscarriage of justice – one of Britain’s worst ever – compounded by the fact that Kiszko died aged just 41 in December 1993, having been released after 17 years wrongful imprisonment the previous year. He never recovered from his ordeal – an entirely preventable one.

But it should not require vindication to learn the lessons of cases like this and there are others which will almost certainly never end in vindication. What about them?